PC-BSD® utilities dealing with software installation and upgrades use {{citelink|fbsdh|url=pkgng-intro.html|txt=pkgng}}, FreeBSD's Next Generation package management tool. Part of this change included the creation of a custom PC-BSD® package repository which contains all of the packages that can be built using pkgng. FreeBSD users who use pkgng are also welcome to use the PC-BSD® package repository.

PC-BSD® utilities dealing with software installation and upgrades use {{citelink|fbsdh|url=pkgng-intro.html|txt=pkgng}}, FreeBSD's Next Generation package management tool. Part of this change included the creation of a custom PC-BSD® package repository which contains all of the packages that can be built using pkgng. FreeBSD users who use pkgng are also welcome to use the PC-BSD® package repository.

Revision as of 03:59, 18 December 2013

PC-BSD® utilities dealing with software installation and upgrades use pkgng[1], FreeBSD's Next Generation package management tool. Part of this change included the creation of a custom PC-BSD® package repository which contains all of the packages that can be built using pkgng. FreeBSD users who use pkgng are also welcome to use the PC-BSD® package repository.

This package repository contains a custom package, called pcbsd-base, which can be used to easily convert an existing FreeBSD installation into a PC-BSD® desktop. It also contains a custom package called trueos-base which can be used to convert an existing FreeBSD installation into a TrueOS® server. The converted desktop will contain all of the graphical utilities that come with PC-BSD® and the converted server will contain all of their command line equivalents.

This section describes how to:

Configure a FreeBSD or PC-BSD® system to use the pkgng repository.

Convert a FreeBSD system to a PC-BSD® desktop.

Convert a FreeBSD system to a TrueOS® server.

Switching to the PC-BSD® pkgng Repository

If you are running PC-BSD® 9.1-RELEASE or FreeBSD 9.1 or higher, type pkg in order to automatically install the software that is required.

Then, run the command pkg2ng to import your existing package database from the old format to the new pkgng format.

Next, configure access to the PC-BSD® repository. Start by creating the file /usr/local/etc/pkg.conf with the following contents:

The system is now configured and you now update your packages to the latest versions from the pkgng repository using the following command:

pkg upgrade -fy

Depending upon what is already installed, you may have to resolve some error messages in order to successfully upgrade all packages.

To install and delete packages, use the pkg command. This command differs in usage from the original package format version. You can learn more about how to use this command in Section 5.5.3 of the FreeBSD Handbook[1].

Converting FreeBSD to a PC-BSD® Desktop

Once the repository configuration is complete, it is now easy to convert a FreeBSD system into a PC-BSD® desktop using the following commands as the superuser: